Modern assembly line manufacturing processes are typically highly automated in terms of operations necessary to manipulate materials and devices in order to create a finished product. Associated quality control processes, which include, among other things, inspection of the manufactured product both during manufacture and as a finished product, detection of defects, and evaluation and correction of manufacturing processes that cause defects, often rely on human skill, knowledge, and experience.
Current assembly line processes may employ high-tech inspection devices such as x-ray and/or acoustic imagers, and the images created by these devices are manually analyzed at least once or twice by one or more engineers and/or assembly line operators.